Glazed

About eight years ago I worked as a courier for a commercial real estate company in Detroit. My duties included driving around, picking up and dropping off various documents, making bank deposits, walking around in bookstores, taking naps in parking lots, etc. All for only $9 an hour! Sometimes I'd also have to drop off small-scale bribes, which were either Red Wings tickets or a case of Krispy Kreme donuts. I guess you're not supposed to give clients such gifts, so I was always told to drop them off without saying where I was from (wink, wink, nudge, poke, wink). The catch was that I always took them to places that I already went to two or three times a week, so they'd say, "Hi, Jesse. Oh hey, donuts. Thanks!"

Anyway, I think my company had a tab or some sort of understanding with Krispy Kreme. All I ever had to do was walk in wearing my dumb jacket with the company logo on it and say something like "Fifty donuts, please" and then they'd give me fifty donuts for free and all the other customers would stop and stare at me like I must be the President of The United States of America (in reality, it was Bill Clinton). I always wanted to walk in there and say "Fifty donuts, please" for my own selfish purposes but I never had the nerve. Or the donuts!

I only remembered that story just now because I've been sitting at my desk thinking about how as soon as that cafeteria opens I'm gonna pour a cup of coffee and go stuff my face with a big fat afternoon donut. I guess that's what growing up is all about.

Also, get this: I must have dropped a quarter as I walked into the subway station this morning, because some lady followed me down onto the platform and said, “Sir, you dropped your quarter!” and gave it back to me. All that for two bits! It’s so rare that a stranger is that overtly friendly to me in New York, that whenever it happens I momentarily wonder if I’m about to get mugged. Like, I say thanks and reach for the quarter and then her buddy hits me in the head with a pipe. Konk! “They finally got me!”

Luckily, she was just a nice lady who thinks I love quarters. After I got off the train I threw it at a bird. I could tell it thought it was better than me!